But fur happens, and with a woolly Great Pyrenees/Border Collie in the house, I wanted the big guns.

Miele's answer to de-fuzzing your life comes out of the box like a white
Porsche 911 for your floors. The German-engineered powerhouse is curvy and sleek in all the right places, and weighs a solid 30 pounds. Despite the significant weight, it gets to work immediately with a combination of swivel (it has 360-degree rubber castors that adds ballet-like flexibility to its performance) and sheer sucking power. An extension hose built into the body telescopes out for narrow spaces and ceilings. A 40-foot power cord is long enough to cover most rooms short of castle size and the whole unit limbos low to sneak under furniture. I appreciate the bright headlight on the face of the chassis, even though I saw how filthy my house actually was. If there's a complaint, it's the weight. Lugging the Miele from room to room is a workout, especially if one of those rooms happens to be on another floor. But the glide and deliver action on the ground makes it a noble war horse, even at a thoroughbred price of $649.

Dyson's Animal Upright looks more like a movie robot than a vacuum. The ball-shaped "abdomen" of the thing lets you pivot on a dime around couch corners and even the dog. There's a high-reach wand for cleaning on stairs. A see-through dust bin comes off with a click and unloads in the trash with another, letting you do away with pricy vacuum bags forever. Dyson claims the DC65 boasts that it has twice as much suction power than any other vacuum, and while that's a hard claim to test it certainly left our floors noticeably cleaner than I'd seen in a long time. Then there are the accessories. The Animal comes with more brushes and combs than a season of Tabatha's Salon Takeover. Standard are the Dyson Tangle-free Turbine tool that lets you clean hair without it tangling, and a soft dusting brush for more gentle cleaning.

But I also experimented with a multi-angled brush, a pointy wand and, my favorite, a Dyson groom tool that lets you suck the hair off the dog before it gets all over the house. Downsides? It feels a little flimsy and cheap for a $600 machine, particularly alongside the Miele. But the drive is not indication of its cleaning ability.

In the end, I give Dyson a slight edge over Miele. It's not as pretty but even a very hairy dog like ours is no match for the Animal.